SAN JOSE — Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday passionately defended his tax-hike ballot measure, California’s high-speed rail project, new public pension reforms and his plan to restore the Sacramento Delta.

But in an acknowledgement that might have been shocking had it come from any other politician, Brown found flaws with most of them. Though imperfect, he said, they’re the best plans he can push through Sacramento’s deep partisan divide.

“I play the cards I’m dealt,” he said.

In a wide-ranging, hour-long talk with the Bay Area News Group’s editorial boards, Brown said he thought long and hard about whether to proceed with the $69 billion bullet-train project, even as he asks voters to approve temporary tax hikes and pitches a $14 billion tunnel system for the Delta.

“There is tension, I acknowledge that, and I thought about it myself — I gave it a lot of thought whether to pull the plug and just send the money back like that fellow in New Jersey did,” Brown said, referring to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2010 decision to kill the nation’s largest public transit project, a rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River.

But with so much federal money available and so many Central Valley workers in need of jobs, Brown said, going forward seemed like the best choice.

Though the pension reform legislation he’ll sign Wednesday in Los Angeles didn’t entirely satisfy anyone, he said, it was the best deal he could get.

“You have basically one side who doesn’t know how to say no (Democrats) and we have another side that doesn’t know how to say yes (Republicans),” he said. “And I’m in the middle trying to squeeze a little more yes out of one side and a little more no out of the other side, and we’ll do more as we go along.”

For future workers, the pension legislation raises retirement ages, caps pensions and imposes new formulas that would reduce payouts.

‘A path forward’

Similar deliberation and compromise went into his Delta plan, said Brown, who decided that levee restoration won’t protect California’s most vital water supply with the reliability that his $14 billion tunnels would offer.

The tunnels would carry water southward beneath the Delta while tens of thousands of acres of wetlands are restored above ground.

“Somewhere between ‘full speed ahead’ and ‘mired in analytical paralysis’ there is a path forward, and that’s what I’m trying to take,” he said.

Perhaps his most remarkable admission was that Proposition 30 on the November ballot– which would raise the state sales tax by a quarter-cent for four years and boost income taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents for seven years — isn’t ideal for addressing the state’s volatile revenue stream, which already depends heavily on high-income earners.

It is, however, the most politically expedient solution to the state’s money problems, he said. Though his original ballot-measure proposal included no income tax hikes, a “millionaire’s tax” advanced by the California Federation of Teachers was doing better in polls, he said, so incorporating that plan into his own seemed like the best way to win an election.

Investing in the future

The state already has made bone-deep cuts to prisons, local redevelopment, care for the disabled, college scholarships and practically every other area of the budget, he said, and setting near-apocalyptic “trigger cuts” in place for education — the largest share of the budget by far — was the only way to pass a spending plan that kept the state in Wall Street’s good graces.

Yet even with schools hanging by a fiscal thread, California must continue investing in its future with projects such as high-speed rail and the Delta tunnels, he said. The state has the long-term wealth, vision and manpower necessary for such investments and merely needs the political will to match, he said.

Pressed on the wisdom of investing so much on high-speed rail — which critics have dubbed the “train to nowhere” because the first phase would start and end in the Central Valley– Brown invoked NASA’s popular Mars rover mission.

“There are people, those critics, who say, ‘Why did we put that one-ton vehicle way over there on Mars? I’m not going over there.’ … And yet that represents an advance of technology, a marvel of human ingenuity and collaboration, most of it coming from California.

“That spirit is what builds California, and if we’re just going to become an aging nursing home of fearful people, it’s over,” he said.

Brown implied he’d seek further pension reforms next year but wouldn’t provide details Tuesday lest he alienate allies he needs for the Proposition 30 battle. “You want me to identify the hogs I’m going to take to slaughter? No, I decline the invitation.”

Clash with Christie

Brown also fired a new shot Tuesday in the war of words that began Aug. 27 when Gov. Christie, speaking at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., called Brown “an old retread” who “won the New Jersey presidential primary over Jimmy Carter when I was 14 years old.”

Brown on Tuesday said he and the state’s other executive officers have pared their spending, including their travel budgets. “I’m flying Southwest, and I oftentimes take the middle seat — I don’t think Christie is taking the middle seat. So I’m doing my part for austerity.”

It wasn’t Brown’s first jab at Christie’s girth. A week ago, he challenged Christie to a 3-mile run, a push-up contest and a chin-up contest; he said he’d take any bet on such a matchup and was confident he’d win. Christie told reporters Tuesday that Brown “can have that contest with himself” while he tries “to make my state better.”

Asked whether he intends to seek another term in 2014, Brown quipped, “Do I have to decide today?”

“I think about it now and then, but I don’t think I have enough information,” he hedged, adding that he enjoys being governor.

“This is a stressful job,” Brown said. “But I like to think I give as much stress as I take.”

Gov. Jerry Brown delivered a series of amusing one-liners during his meeting with the Bay Area News Group’s editorial boards Tuesday.

On state government officials’ cost-cutting: “I’m flying Southwest and I oftentimes take the middle seat — I don’t think (New Jersey Gov. Chris) Christie is taking the middle seat. So I’m doing my part for austerity.”

On enjoying his job: “This is a stressful job, but I like to think I give as much stress as I take.”

On identifying more potential pension reforms before finishing his ballot-measure campaign: “You want me to identify the hogs I’m going to take to slaughter? No, I decline the invitation.”

On progress in Sacramento: “Somewhere between ‘full speed ahead’ and ‘mired in analytical paralysis’ there is a path forward, and that’s what I’m trying to take.”

On leaving a legacy: “I have nothing named after me and I’m very glad of that. … You should wait until people are dead or senile, and I’ll tell you why: because they can’t be indicted anymore. You never know.”

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